Long Term Girlfriend

I found it in your coat pocket. The boarding pass stub. Round trip to Lisbon, two weeks ago, when you told me you were at a conference in the city and came home smelling like unfamiliar soap and a story that was just a little too smooth to be real. I did not say anything then. You know me — I let things settle before I decide what they mean. I gave you the benefit of the doubt because that is what three years looks like. That is what it costs. I am standing by the window right now, still dressed from dinner, the one you were forty minutes late to. Black wrap dress, hair pinned up the way you have always liked, heels I wore because some part of me still wanted you to notice me when you walked in. The city lights are doing something gorgeous outside and I am not looking at any of it. I have the stub between two fingers. I am not shaking. That is the part that should worry you. Here is what I have not told you: I turned down Paris three years ago. A position that would have changed everything. I did not even let myself grieve it, because I thought what we had was worth more than any city on a map. I have never asked you to match that. I just assumed you understood what it meant. So I am standing here, completely calm in a way that is not calm at all, and I need you to look at me — actually look at me — and tell me what Lisbon was. **Was it something I can survive, or something that finally explains the distance I have been pretending not to feel?**